


seize the world and shake it upside down

by oryx



Category: Kamen Rider Zi-O, 騎士竜戦隊リュウソウジャー | Kishiryu Sentai Ryusoulger
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Crossover, M/M, Zi-O Post-Canon, working through issues together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-23 08:23:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20889077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oryx/pseuds/oryx
Summary: Woz finds himself a new liege, one much less interested in taking up that role.





	seize the world and shake it upside down

**Author's Note:**

> hi and welcome to my uh. accidental... attempted character study...? or something?  
this was not supposed to be like this. "it'll be simple" i said. "it'll be sexy" i said. and yet here we are. typical.

  
When he first sees him, the late afternoon sun is behind him, glare blotting out his face, and there is something so familiar about his silhouette, broad-shouldered and solid and unwavering, that his heart leaps as he says –  
  
“My king?”  
  
The man shifts, then, the glare receding, and his face is a stranger’s. A very beautiful stranger, Woz can’t help but think. Regal features. He quirks an eyebrow, sharp as the edge of a knife.  
  
“King?” he echoes, voice low and dark. He seems uninterested in hearing any explanation, however, glancing off into the distance, at the strange, enormous beast towering over the city skyline. Another crippling wave of fatigue washes over Woz in this moment, as if someone were wringing him out like a piece of cloth, leaving him to sink back, limp and ragged, against the bars of the railing behind him.  
  
“So you’re the source?” the man asks, brusque.  
  
Woz attempts to give him a wry smile, though is unsure if his mouth actually moves in accordance. “I don’t know,” he says. “Am I?”  
  
“Do you remember being approached by a… An odd green creature?”  
  
Woz can feel his brow furrow. Suddenly it’s difficult to remember anything at all. The hollowed-out ache in his chest seems to be making its way to his thoughts as well.  
  
“Yes,” he says finally. Faintly. “Like a. Mushroom?”  
  
“You’re the one, then. Who created that.” He lifts his chin in the direction of the beast, which seems larger, somehow, than it had been only a few seconds ago. It takes a step, sending a shockwave trembling through the streets, through the pavement beneath Woz’s palms. It groans something (“se-ru-vih”?) in a booming voice that seems to lay thick over the air.  
  
“Found you too late for any niceties,” the man says. “Just stay put. We’ll take care of it.”  
  
Decisive. No arguments to be made. Woz doesn’t know who ‘we’ might be, but he finds that he believes him without question.  
  
The stranger reaches down to touch the device on his wrist.  
  
Ah, Woz thinks, as he watches something akin to lightweight armor, black and silver, appear in a flash to cover the man’s body, a sleek helmet hiding his face from view. A hero, then. Though not a Kamen Rider. Something about the way he holds himself, the way he lifts his sword makes him think: a knight. Like the sort in an old fairytale.  
  
It’s rather enchanting.  
  
There’s a robot, of all things. A battle. Tired as he is, his thoughts jumbled and hazy, his focus still remains as pinpointed on the knight as he can manage. He fights with a team, it seems, but Woz can tell that he is at the helm this time. That the blow that finally ends it is his.  
  
And that is when his energy returns to him, with a suddenness that makes him dizzy. From feeling like he’s on the brink of death to normalcy in an instant. A switch being flipped. He simply sits there for a time, reveling in feeling like a full person again. Pushes himself to his feet on shockingly steady legs; stares out over the rooftops and swears he makes eye contact through the visor of that robot before the thing breaks apart and its pieces separate once more.  
  
He has been saved. By that man in black. He understands that very plainly.  
  
Woz’s grip tightens around the spine of his book as he smiles.  
  
  
  
  
  
He finds them at a plaza several blocks into the heart of downtown, and halts at the top of the steps to proclaim:  
  
“That was magnificent, my shining knight!”  
  
They all stop in the midst of their amiable bickering. Turn to stare at him. The man’s eyes widen very slightly in recognition.  
  
“Who’re you talking to?” the girl calls, frowning.  
  
“To your esteemed friend in black, of course.”  
  
The other four give their comrade a glance – eyebrows raised – which he looks charmingly disarmed by.  
  
“You know him, nii-san?” The one in green. A younger brother, then. Woz files that fact away for later as he descends the stairs to stand in front of them.  
  
“He is – was the source. Of the Minusaur.”  
  
“Ah!” the one in red exclaims, hand covering his mouth. “I said ‘we should go check on them’ then I totally forgot… You feeling okay now, mister?”  
  
“I am in excellent form, red boy,” Woz says with a smile. “The best I have felt in months, as you will be pleased to know that I, Woz, have decided to become a stalwart retainer to your compatriot here.”  
  
They all blink back at him.  
  
“What… does that mean, exactly?” asks the boy with the vivid blue hair, brow knitting together.  
  
“It means I shall support him on his quest towards any goal he so chooses, and celebrate his every triumph, loud enough for all to hear, so that history may never forget his name.”  
  
The blue boy opens his mouth and closes it again. Struck speechless by the importance of this mission, no doubt.  
  
The sharp tip of a sword is leveled at his throat in a single fluid motion.  
  
“Who are you?” his knight asks coolly.  
  
His smile broadens. “Woz, sire. As I just told you.”  
  
“You’re going to have to give me a few more details than that.”  
  
“Banba, c’mon, put it down,” the red boy says, admonishing, laying a hand on the blade and attempting to lower it for him. (So it’s Banba. A lovely, fitting name, Woz decides. Firm and unyielding, just like the man it belongs to.) “You just said he was the victim, didn’t you – ”  
  
“It could’ve been a ploy,” Banba says, eyes narrowing. “Pretending to be affected. Maybe I never met the real victim. How do we know he’s not a Druidon in disguise? Reminds me of that showy one that’s always being a nuisance.”  
  
“If it puts your mind at ease, my knight, rest assured that I have no idea what a Druidon might be.”  
  
The girl leans in to peer at him. Tilts her head to the side. “I dunno, he seems pretty harmless to me.”  
  
“Why thank you, miss.”  
  
“I mean,” she continues, and here she appears to be stifling a laugh, “so you’re pretty much just… Banba’s fan?”  
  
“That is one way to look at it, yes.”  
  
Immediately, the others hide a laugh behind their hands as well.  
  
“That’s great, nii-san,” the brother says, smiling up at him serenely. “You should be happy about it.”  
  
A positively stormy expression has descended upon Banba’s face. He sheathes his sword slowly; reaches up to pinch the bridge of his nose. Overwhelmed, certainly, by the sudden joy of this occasion.  
  
“I don’t want a _fan_,” he says tersely. Motions to his brother. “Let’s go.” Seems to be struck by a thought right before he turns away, pausing to level a finger in Woz’s direction. “Don’t think about following us.”  
  
Woz’s breath catches in his throat. It has been such a long while. Since anyone spoke to him with such authority.  
  
“Certainly, sire.” He bows his head. When he lifts his eyes, his knight is stalking away, the others trailing after him, whispering and laughing to themselves. The boy in red waves to Woz with a grin, and Woz returns the gesture with a smile of his own.  
  
Yes, he thinks. This is perfect. This will do.  
  
He opens the book to find the pages, tragically blank ever since the rewriting of history, to be filling once more with words, neat rows of ink blooming across the paper as he watches. Not as many words as there used to be. The book’s power of prediction has been greatly reduced, it seems. But seeing anything there at all is enough to make his heart leap. History is in his hands once again.  
  
He flips to the first page to discover, written in bold print, the new title.  
  
**An Account of the Life and Times of Ryusoul Black.**  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Banba is not so un-self-aware that he doesn’t know that he has a tendency to be… overly vigilant, at times. A bit of a curse, really. Envisioning an enemy around every corner has certainly never helped to improve his skill at maintaining interpersonal relationships.  
  
And yet his sixth sense has steered him right enough times that he would never think of disregarding it.  
  
Logically, the others’ laughing dismissal of that man makes sense. Just a strange character. The world is full of them, nii-san. Banba has been around it more than they have, and he knows that be true enough.  
  
But his gut tells him there’s something else. Something in the way he’d looked at him. Bright-eyed. Purposeful. Hungry. It’s enough to set off an alarm bell or three in the back of his mind.  
  
He knows that he’ll see him again.  
  
Just doesn’t expect it to be here: a Druidon cornered against the rusted chainlink fence of this abandoned supply yard, the five of them transforming in a glimmer of light and shape, raising their swords to strike, when –  
  
“Rejoice! For he is the Knight of Glory, Ryusoul Black!”  
  
They freeze. The Druidon does, too, even, and they all crane their necks to peer up at the roof of the closest warehouse, where that same man is standing at the edge, arm outstretched, smiling broadly.  
  
“He’s back,” Asuna says. A statement of disbelief.  
  
“His power is unmatched,” the man is announcing. ‘Woz,’ he’d called himself. “Like a shadow he strikes swiftly! His blade shall cut through the most dire of foes, purifying the world of their evil! His armor shall hold strong against any assault!”  
  
He lists several other attributes in similar florid fashion before finally falling silent and looking at Banba, expectant. He has spoken his piece, is what it seems to mean, and now it is time for the battle to commence.  
  
“…Right,” Banba mutters, shaking himself. “Let’s get this over with.”  
  
He’s still there, after the Druidon is gone. Once again coming to meet them with effusive praise and that strange, pleased expression. He’d found them again, somehow. And he knows Banba’s title – a deeper knowledge than seems reasonable, for an average civilian. This is looking more and more like something he cannot just ignore.  
  
“Alright,” Banba says darkly. “This time, you’re coming back with us.”  
  
  
  
  
  
Woz quite cheerfully explains that Banba’s history – past, present, and future – is written in the odd magic book he carries with him.  
  
“Prove it,” Banba tells him. “What will I do tomorrow?”  
  
“Ah,” Woz says, shaking his head with a laugh. “I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that, sire. That would count as spoilers.”  
  
Banba glowers back at him from across the table.  
  
Melto pauses in sipping at his tea to make a thoughtful face. “I mean. That does make some sense, doesn’t it? If he told you what you would do, would that affect you actually doing it?”  
  
Asuna and Koh nod very seriously, pretending that they’re following this logic.  
  
“My. Very astute. You have the makings of a time traveler, blue boy.”  
  
Melto frowns. “Can you not call me that? My name is – ”  
  
“Salto!” Tyramigo pipes up.  
  
“I see. Salto.” Woz nods to himself. “I shall endeavor to remember that, as you are a friend of my knight.”  
  
Melto seems to be halfway into a protestation when he simply gives up, heaving a sigh and staring down into his tea morosely.  
  
“I’m not interested in your ‘spoilers,’” Banba snaps, a noise of frustration rising in the back of his throat. “You having detailed information on us could become a problem if it found its way into the enemy’s hands. That’s the issue here. We’re taking that book.”  
  
He looks somewhat pained. “Sire, I can assure you that your history is closely guarded by yours truly – ”  
  
Banba nods to Towa, who grins before darting around the table and snatching the book from Woz’s hand, spinning away before he hardly has time to react. His grin starts to fade a bit, though, as he stands there flipping through it.  
  
“Uh,” he says. “Nii-san, can… Can _you_ read this?”  
  
He hands it to him. It’s the most inexplicable thing – he can see writing there on the pages, forming the shape of words he is almost certain he knows, and yet. He can’t read them. No matter how hard he tries, his eyes seem to simply lose focus, to slide away, like water running over rocks.  
  
“I do apologize, my knight,” Woz says, plucking the book back out of his hands. “But only those with a certain… quirk can hope to read something like this. It is a trifle, really. Since you have me by your side, there will never be any need for you to trouble yourself.”  
  
“…You’re going to be by my side, are you?” Banba says drily, too taken aback by the strangeness of all this to muster any other question.  
  
“Oh yes, of course.” Woz smiles prettily; tilts his head to the side to give him a long, intent look. “Until the very end, if you’ll have me.”  
  
  
  
  
  
He’s not quite sure how it happens, that Woz seems to move in to the Tatsui residence. He and Towa merely arrive one morning to find him there, an apron over his clothes and a bandana wrapped around his hair, having prepared an elaborate breakfast for everyone.  
  
“Oh, he asked if he could stay in the makeshift room we made up for you boys,” Ui’s father explains, after Banba has dragged him aside. “The one you hardly ever use, despite _all_ the trouble we went to.” He pauses to let that fact sink in. “And he offered to cook and clean some in exchange, so I thought why not. Since he’s a friend of yours and all.”  
  
“He’s not – ” he starts, but Ui’s father is already wandering off towards his desk, muttering something about misplaced carbon dating research. Banba glances back over his shoulder to find Woz observing him keenly. Can feel the beginnings of a headache forming along his temple as he grudgingly takes a seat at the table.  
  
“Isn’t this nice, sire?” He sets a plate down in front of him, the portions clearly far more generous than everyone else’s. “Now I can be of use to you much more conveniently.”  
  
Banba makes a tired, noncommittal noise.  
  
“Of course, I’ve heard from the others that you mainly stay at your own apartment across town…?” His tone is leading. “Wouldn’t it be even nicer for us to be that close?”  
  
“Absolutely not,” Banba says flatly.  
  
“Oh, my knight,” he laughs. “I do so appreciate your sense of humor.”  
  
He lifts his eyes to the ceiling, wondering if perhaps he could train MirNeedle to rescue him from situations like this one.  
  
It’s odd, though. The way he almost… gets used to it, in the days and then weeks that follow. How Woz will just appear out of the blue along the sidelines of battles. How every time he uses a Ryu Soul that Woz has never seen before, the fighting will have to pause for him to pronounce its prowess to everyone within listening range. (He always looks sour when Banba takes advantage of the enemy’s distraction to get a hit in while he’s still speaking.)  
  
And then, at the Tatsui’s, he’ll be there, too. Smiling as he asks what they might all like for dinner that evening. A bizarre routine, or at least. It should be. But as the days go on, the bizarre begins to feel commonplace. As if he’d always been there. Just another odd member of their ragtag band. The wariness towards his motives slips gradually away, or rather. It gets muddled until it’s all but unrecognizable.  
  
The questions still persist, though, a thorn of bewilderment stuck in the back of Banba’s thoughts. The basic ‘who’s and ‘what’s and particularly the ‘why’s, most of which Woz will readily answer, and yet those answers are so lacking in context that they leave him feeling as if he knows less than before.  
  
“Are you… from a different time?” he finds himself asking one night, pausing in his methodic polishing of his Ryu Souls, and immediately he can see Woz’s eyes brighten. The others are across the room laughing at Ui’s latest video, and it’s just the two of them seated at the table.  
  
“Very sharp, sire. I am. From the future, in fact.”  
  
“The future,” he echoes.  
  
“Yes. I was born in the year 2043.”  
  
Should he find that unbelievable? He supposes it would be hypocritical of him to condemn anyone else’s life story as such. And that this man is a time traveler displaced from some outlandish future… It _feels_ correct, in a nebulous, instinctual way.  
  
“What year did you come here from?”  
  
“2068.”  
  
“So you’re twenty-five, then?”  
  
Woz’s expression turns playfully contemplative as he drums his fingers against the cover of his book. “Well. Something like that.”  
  
Banba gives him a pointed look as he waits for him to elaborate.  
  
“I have – a bit of a complicated relationship with time,” Woz acquiesces after a moment. “All my traveling, slipping through the backdoors of time out of time… It’s possible some years might have passed me by without me noticing.” The corner of his mouth quirks into a faint smile. “Perhaps that’s one thing we have in common, my knight.”  
  
Banba’s pauses, eyes narrowing. “How much of my past is in that book, exactly?”  
  
“Oh, I’m not reading up on all the gritty personal details, if that’s what worries you, sire. This book was once very thorough, but nowadays… its records of the past are far more bare bones. But it is enough to see that your timeline goes back about two hundred years more than you’d think it would.”  
  
He ‘hmph’s. “Don’t go thinking I’m special for that. That’s how we all are, in the Ryusoul Tribe.”  
  
“Really? And yet you still seem so singularly lonely, my knight.”  
  
Banba stares back at him, startled. At that same odd light to his eyes which is suddenly there again, as if he were waiting, eagerly wanting for something. Banba clears his throat. Picks up another Ryu Soul and begins to polish it intently.  
  
“I was under the impression you were supposed to be flattering me,” he says stiffly, and Woz laughs, with such fondness that Banba can almost feel it himself.  
  
  
  
  
  
It’s because he let his guard down. That is the very first thought that enters his mind, when it happens. Wondering how he ever got to the point of accepting this strange man as part of daily life.  
  
This Minusaur is highly sensitive to the human voice, and discovering that fact has been a process, to say the least. Anything more than a whisper in its vicinity causes it to react like a berserk switch has just been flipped, leaving a swathe of destruction behind it. And in a sick gambit from one of the Druidon generals, it’s currently standing next to a corralled group of cowering captives.  
  
Somehow, they’ve managed to work out a plan. Melto nods to him from his hiding place behind the stone fountain, and Banba nods in return; slides the Extend Soul into his sword as quietly as he is able, the armament appearing on his shoulder –  
  
“Rejoice!” a voice exclaims, and that is when it all goes to hell.  
  
They’re all battered and bruised when they return to the Tatsui’s, but Banba still finds plenty of strength within him to curl his fingers into Woz’s collar and slam him against the wall.  
  
“You know, I’ve been thinking about it,” he hisses. Woz’s eyes are very round, two dark coins staring back at him. “About why you’re here. It didn’t make any sense to me. But I think I’m starting to get it now. You’re just a nuisance, aren’t you? By nature. Just one of those people who wants so badly to be in the middle of something. No matter what problems you might cause for anyone else.”  
  
“My knight, I can assure you – ”  
  
“I don’t want your assurances.” His own voice sounds icier than he’s ever heard it before. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Allowing you to hang around us. I must have lost my damn mind.” He grits his teeth; takes a deep, shuddering breath. “All I want right now is for you to get out of my sight, and never show your face around here again. Is that clear?”  
  
The hurt that flickers across Woz’s face looks oddly genuine in this moment. More than hurt, even. Anguish. Gut-wrenching misery. He might as well have run him through with his blade, is what his face seems to say.  
  
But it is gone a second later, carefully locked away, and Woz smiles, thin and perfunctory.  
  
“Certainly, sire,” he says. “If that is what you wish of me.”  
  
  
  
  
  
Woz’s expressions as he’d commanded him to leave are still seared into his mind hours later, when reports begin popping up on social media that the Minusaur has appeared again. But there are other reports, too – Druidon footsoldiers snatching people up across town. Planning another hostage situation, no doubt.  
  
“We’ll deal with that,” Banba tells the others. “You three should try the plan again.”  
  
They’ve been giving him odd, furtive looks all this time, and they exchange a glance between them now. “Banba,” Asuna starts. “About Woz… I don’t think he meant to – ”  
  
“Now’s not the time,” he snaps, frustration unintentionally bleeding through into his words. He inclines his head towards the door. “Towa. Let’s go.”  
  
It’s chaos when they get there. Civilians being cornered by footsoldiers everywhere they turn, and they split up with a wordless nod, each taking a half of the street.  
  
He’s slamming one of the enemy soldiers into the ground when he looks up and sees him. He’s stepping in between a cowering woman and an approaching assailant, scarf thrown over his shoulder, that familiar book held firmly in hand. As if… he were trying to protect her. He says something over his shoulder and she scrambles away towards safety.  
  
He gets three remarkably solid hits in – Banba never would have thought him a fighter – but is blindsided a moment later by a second opponent, the blunt end of its lance striking him in the stomach, sending him stumbling back. And then – another blow, a sickening crack along his forehead, and his legs give out beneath him, crumpling to the ground in what seems like slow motion.  
  
(Later, he’ll wonder about the pang of fear he felt in this moment.)  
  
Banba finally wrests himself away from the soldier he’s been parrying; strikes it and the others down in quick succession and sprints across the street. He kneels next to Woz to assess the damage, pushing back his hair and wincing inwardly at the stream of blood trickling from the nasty gash above his eyebrow, and Woz’s gaze seems to unfocus and focus again as he peers up at him.  
  
“My knight,” he says, smiling weakly. “How gratifying that you would come to my aid. After I… made such a mess of things…”  
  
“That’s – ” He averts his eyes. “Forget about it. Try not to move too much.” He rises back to his feet, eyeing the remainder of the enemy as he reaches for his bracer. “I’ll be done here soon enough.”  
  
(Towa gives him a significant look as he carries the now-unconscious Woz back to the Tatsui’s. He’s shockingly light and thin for an adult man – his weight against his back is almost unnoticeable compared to certain training exercises he can remember. His hair tickles Banba’s neck, chin resting warm on his shoulder, and he’s positive he must be getting blood on his shirt.  
  
“What?” Banba says.  
  
“No~thing,” Towa replies, in that singsong way of his that means much more than nothing.  
  
Banba presses his lips together in a thin line and continues the trek back home in silence.)  
  
  
  
  
  
Surface-level wounds are easy enough to mend with the Heal Soul, but it can’t exactly fix blood loss or the kind of issues that often come from being hit soundly about the head, and so Banba pulls up a chair alongside the couch, watching Woz for any signs of something having gone funny.  
  
Funni_er_ in this case, he supposes.  
  
“Why did you try to help?” he asks. Quietly, but it seems loud against the silence of the basement. After seeing him regain consciousness, Melto had herded everyone else upstairs, saying something about “too much noise not being good for someone with a concussion – not that he has one of those, I don’t think? Probably not? But just in case, right?”  
  
Woz blinks slowly. Presses the heel of his palm against the part of his forehead that’s undoubtedly throbbing right now. Grimaces, then turns it into a small, pained smile a moment later.  
  
“Who knows?” he murmurs. “Penance for my error, perhaps. Or… I was just in the mood to play at the good Samaritan for once. Hanging around you honorable knights has influenced me, I think. Made me… remember…” He trails off, voice seeming to get lost somewhere.  
  
“Remember what?”  
  
He almost seems like he’s considering ignoring the question outright, lying there as still as a statue, until finally:  
  
“I know this might seem hard to believe. But I was a lot like you, once. A leader of men.” He punctuates this with a dry laugh. “Someone given a righteous mission, fighting a noble war. They called me ‘General,’ you know. All those… hopeful faces looking up at me.” A twist of the lips. “And I hated every second of it.  
  
“I had been… someone’s right hand man,” he continues after a pause. “They died. And suddenly it was all on me. All that responsibility.” He sighs dramatically. “But I’m sure you know, sire. That some people just aren’t meant for such things. Some of us are meant… to take orders, rather than give them. _He_ could tell right away, from the very first moment he laid eyes on me.”  
  
“…He?”  
  
“My king. The enemy, which made me a traitor, but that was a sacrifice I was willing to make. He called my bluff instantly. Saw me for what I really was.” Something heavy seems to settle into the space between them. Woz’s eyes are half-lidded as he looks at him. His hand stretches out, seemingly casual, knuckles brushing lightly against his knee. “He offered to give me what I needed.”  
  
Banba swallows hard. In the blink of an eye the air in the room has begun to feel strangely warm and close. The question that first comes to mind is right there on his tongue, but he bites it back, instead asking:  
  
“Where is he now, then? This king?”  
  
Something deeply tired flickers across Woz’s face. “Gone,” he says. “Every trace of him. And I have been without someone to dutifully serve. Until… I met you, my knight.”  
  
“Why me?”  
  
That quiet amusement falls back into place again. “Why not? A knight isn’t so different from a king, really. Your triumphs are admirable and worth celebrating. And you have a certain… presence about you. Has no one ever told you that before? Your demeanor… has a comforting familiarity to it, for me.”  
  
“So I’m just a replacement?” He’d meant to sound careless, unconcerned, but a slight tinge of bitterness colours his words all the same.  
  
A laugh. “Don’t think of it like that, sire. Think of it as,” here he makes a vague gesture, “building something new on old foundations. I remind you of someone, too, don’t I? I can see it in the way you look at me.”  
  
Banba’s hand curls into a fist at his side. He’s been trying not to think about it. About twenty years ago. She’d looked like him – a similar wave in her dark hair, similar charmingly crooked smile. Every so often he can still hear her voice saying _we can go out a few times, but this isn’t a thing, okay? It’s not going to be real. I can tell. You’re the type who loves them and leaves them. _Lately, though, that memory seems fainter, replaced by the echo of _until the very end, if you’ll have me_ –  
  
“See? We’re on the same page, aren’t we?” Woz is saying softly. He’s pushing himself up into a sitting position, leaning in, and his hand slides forward along with him, palm warm against Banba’s inner thigh. He stiffens at the touch. “It might not be the most auspicious start, but wonderful things have begun from less.”  
  
His face is close, then, his lips slightly parted, and Banba feels caught there, throat tight with anticipation before the reality of this registers to him and –  
  
He shoves that hand away and gets abruptly to his feet.  
  
“You need to rest,” he says, voice clipped. “Recover. Head injuries… can do odd things to a person.”  
  
He doesn’t look to see what face Woz is making as he turns away.  
  
  
  
  
  
The idea that anything “returns to normal” in the days that follow should probably be a ludicrous one. But that is fast becoming the only way to think of it, this situation they’ve found themselves in. Woz returns to his worshipful, near-constant background presence. Banba returns to tolerating it.  
  
Except. Now he understands what this man really wants from him. And that knowledge sits heavy and dark in the corner of his mind, intruding upon everything else. Casting every glance and gesture in a new light.  
  
And alongside it is the thought that he could give it to him.  
  
It wouldn’t be so out of character, would it? He’s often considered himself a naturally commanding person. Someone with an innate need to be in control of the world around him. (Others have seemed to consider him such as well, though very few of them have ever been happy about it.)  
  
It couldn’t hurt, he reasons. To try. To start small.  
  
“Woz,” he says briskly, as they are gathering around the table for another meal together. “Enough fussing. Sit. Eat.”  
  
Woz goes still, his serving spoon hovering above the rice cooker.  
  
“That’s an order,” he adds, and watches his eyes widen, beaming as he hurries to comply, the line of his thigh pressing against Banba’s as he squeezes in next to him.  
  
The day after:  
  
“Bring me my sword.” The authoritative tone comes more easily, this time. He could fetch it himself, of course, the thing sitting only across the room, but he thinks that there has been something anticipatory about Woz for hours now, a man metaphorically holding his breath, and indeed relief is evident on his face as he springs up, bowing slightly at the waist.  
  
He even kneels as he presents it to him, looking up through his eyelashes, a glint visible there. Again, there is that smile on his lips.  
  
It should be patently ridiculous, the performance of it all.  
  
He wonders why he feels rather pleased instead. Though not in the way, he thinks, that he is meant to.  
  
Two days after:  
  
“Woz. Enough,” he says sharply, cutting him off in the middle of another of his dramatic celebratory speeches. “Be quiet and stay that way.”  
  
He is obeyed, but the dismayed look he receives in return is almost heartrendingly tragic. (He decides then and there that this reaction pleases him somewhat less.)  
  
Three days after:  
  
He’s not sure why he’s allowed Woz into his and Towa’s apartment. (Well. Less _theirs_ and more the property of Madame Prime Minister, but he tries not to think about how much he owes her.) He’d been trailing after him like usual, and it had felt so natural that he hadn’t thought about it until they were both there at the door.  
  
He’d gladly made himself a bed on the couch, and just like that he’d taken up residence in this space, too.  
  
“My vest,” Banba orders, offhanded, standing at the window observing the cloudless morning sky, and Woz fetches it with lightning fast efficiency, holding it so that he may slip his arms through. He goes to do up the buttons, but Woz steps around, says “please, allow me,” and then he’s standing close, fingers lingering maybe a bit too long on each one, and it’s –  
  
Soft? Tender?  
  
This feeling can’t be right, either.  
  
Four days after:  
  
“He seems to really like being helpful to you,” Koh says with a grin. Woz is at the sink furiously trying to scrub the bloodstain out of Banba’s shirtsleeve, the result of a slice across the cheek from that mysterious assailant in purple armor. Banba hadn’t so much ordered him to as made a vague inquiry, but Woz’s response had been much the same, and now he’s tackling the stain as if it were an offense to his person.  
  
“It’s great,” Koh continues. “That’s what friends are for, right? Though… doesn’t it seem kinda onesided?” He crosses his arms, expression thoughtful. “You should do something for him once in a while, Banba. That’s what I think.”  
  
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” Towa says with a snicker, and Banba levels him with a withering glare.  
  
The idea prickles at the back of his mind, though. What _is_ he doing for Woz?  
  
The more he asks it of himself, the more he’s not quite sure.  
  
  
  
  
  
There have been reports of Druidon activity around a small resort town in the mountains, and with the Minusaur in the city occupying the others’ attention, Banba offers to look into it on his own, impressing upon Towa that “we can’t spare more than one of us right now.”  
  
Almost on his own, at least.  
  
“I will gladly accompany you, my knight,” Woz announces, appearing at his shoulder out of the ether. He finds himself growing accustomed to it, the manner in which he seems to materialize. “Simply say the word.”  
  
He gives him a long look.  
  
“…Fine. You’re with me,” he says, and watches him light up, and wonders, for the briefest second, who it is that’s truly doing the serving here.  
  
“Were you really so poor of a General?” he muses aloud, as the train to their destination rumbles along the tracks beneath them, the scenery flickering past in glimpses of signposts and greenery and electrical wires.  
  
Seated across from him, Woz seems taken aback by the question.  
  
“What brought this on, sire?”  
  
He shakes his head. “Just a thought. Sometimes you seem…” He’s not quite sure how to finish that sentence. Contradictory? Unaligned, as if the pieces of him as a person don’t quite fit together into a coherent whole.  
  
Woz is drawn and silent for a time, before his usual mild smile graces his face. “Oh, I had my moments of glory, certainly. I was rather good at strategizing. Coming up with plans cunning enough to rival those of my soon to be king, if I dare say so. Perhaps it should have been obvious from the start which side of the war I actually belonged on.”  
  
Banba frowns; asks: “So this ‘king’ of yours was what? A dictator?”  
  
“One could say that, yes. He was not exactly a good or kind ruler to his people.”  
  
“And that didn’t bother you? Willingly serving a man like that?”  
  
Woz’s smile falters almost imperceptibly. “No, sire,” he says. “Not at all, I’m afraid. I had no such moral compunctions.”  
  
“I think that’s a lie.” His voice is steady, cold and calm, but his fingers bite into his bicep where his arms are crossed. “I think you regret more than you let on. I think you always wanted to be someone better, even when you told yourself that you didn’t.”  
  
Woz stares back at him, thrown off balance, unguarded just in this moment. “My,” he murmurs. “That sounds like something he would’ve said to me.”  
  
“Who? Your king?”  
  
“Oh, no. Not quite.” He waves a hand as if to brush the idea away; turns his head to stare out the window once again, and there is a tightness to his voice that he’s never heard before as he says: “Just an average high school student.”  
  
  
  
  
  
Hours of wandering around the mountainside town with its old-fashioned wooden buildings and onsens reveals little in terms of concrete information. Everyone knows about the Druidon, as rumor travels quick in small places like this, but figuring out who actually saw the thing and where is proving difficult.  
  
He isn’t used to this, either. Operating as a duo with anyone but Towa. The feeling is entirely different with Woz, who stops him as they exit a touristy clothing shop along the main thoroughfare to hold up one of their locally made yukata – black, naturally, sewn with a kind of shimmering thread – against his chest.  
  
“You would look dashing in this, my knight,” he says, beaming.  
  
Banba blinks. Clears his throat. “Now is – not really the time,” he mutters, and receives a laugh and an acquiescing incline of the head in return.  
  
There is a bakery along the same stretch of shops, and Woz comes to a halt in front of the brightly lit window display of elegant cakes and vividly colourful fruit tarts.  
  
“Do you like sweets, sire?” He points to what looks like a slice of tiramisu, eyes bright as he does so. “I’d say that one there seems exceptionally well made. I have a discerning eye for these things, you know.”  
  
Banba can feel the corner of his mouth curve downward. “I don’t care for sweets, no. Do you… just want to try it yourself?”  
  
“Hm?” His tone is airy. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”  
  
Banba pauses. Sighs. Holds up a finger telling him to wait. Wonders what the hell he’s doing as he pushes the door open and emerges minutes later holding a pastry box, which he shoves into Woz’s hands, who almost doesn’t seem to comprehend his intentions for a moment.  
  
“This is… for me?” He holds it reverently, and this time when he smiles it’s broad and genuine, cheeks dimpling, and Banba feels something tighten in his chest as he glances away.  
  
  
  
  
  
The woman at the inn’s reception desk gives them an odd look. He imagines it probably has something to do with the fact that they don’t have any luggage between them. (The Retrieve Soul is endlessly useful for travel.)  
  
Or maybe it’s the way Woz has linked his arm through his as they stand there, as if they were some sort of newlywed couple on honeymoon. He could shrug him off, of course. Any second now he will absolutely do that.  
  
Though he still hasn’t, by the time the woman fetches the key to lead them to their room.  
  
The space itself is simple and quaint, two futons, a low lacquer table, a balcony overlooking a copse of fir trees dotting the misty slope below. His bracer beeps with an incoming communication as he steps out onto it, and he answers it to Towa’s voice.  
  
“We have things under control here, nii-san,” he says. “For the time being, at least. You find anything over there?”  
  
“Not yet,” he admits. “Things are quiet, and the clues aren’t adding up to much. I think they’re being cautious after getting spotted the first time.”  
  
Asuna’s voice cuts in, a grin audible: “Woz, you’re supporting him, right?”  
  
Woz leans against the railing next to him, preening visibly. “There should be no doubt, miss. And my knight has already been very generous in return.”  
  
Banba winces. As expected, there is a yell of startled laughter from the other end. “Wait, what’s going on up there – ”  
  
“I’ll speak with you again tomorrow,” Banba says quickly, pressing the button to end the call. He massages his temples tiredly in the silence that follows.  
  
“Although,” Woz says, “I fear I may not have been as much use today as you’d prefer, sire. By all means, I am at your disposal. For anything you wish.”  
  
Banba looks at him sidelong. There it is again: the inviting tilt of the chin, the intent expression. Today it only makes him wearier.  
  
“I don’t think this is working,” he says, with a suddenness that feels like a heavy blade slicing through the air between them, severing something that had been pulled taut.  
  
A beat, and Woz blinks.  
  
“This,” he echoes cautiously.  
  
“I thought… it fit me,” Banba continues. “That sort of role. But maybe I don’t know myself the way I thought I did. Because I don’t… I don’t want to be your master.”  
  
Nervousness has begun to creep into Woz’s face. He swallows visibly. “But sire, how can you say that? You struck such confidence a few days prior when you commanded me. Your tone, your poise… It was all wonderful.”  
  
“It’s – ” His grip on the railing tightens, knuckles whitening. “I tried to make it work. Because it seemed to make you happy.”  
  
Woz’s eyes go very wide. He looks – lost, confused, almost, by the concept that anyone would ever do anything simply for his sake.  
  
“But even that’s not quite right, is it? I still don’t… understand you. If a master is even what you want.” He’s going for anger, but all that’s there in his voice is a kind of desperate frustration. “It’s like it’s an excuse. One that you’ve convinced yourself of. You say ‘that’s just who I am’ to make the things you did seem like they were inevitable. But I keep seeing someone else when I look at you. You’ll wait for commands one minute, then do whatever the hell you like the next. And that second version… seems more like you.”  
  
He closes his eyes. Takes a breath, lets it out, trying to unknot some of the tension from his shoulders.  
  
“You seem to like being useful. But on your own terms. With your own eccentricities. And that’s – I like it,” he admits. “I like that you.”  
  
The quiet stretches on, strained, until finally:  
  
“…I see,” Woz says. “So that’s what you’ve been thinking.” He leans against the railing slowly, with the tired appearance of someone shedding some great burden, his mouth set in a rueful smile. “I’d like to be able to say how perceptive you are for figuring me out, but. I honestly don’t know. Sometimes I hardly understand myself. What have I been doing all this time? What was the purpose of any of it?” He shakes his head. “I think about it, and. I’m not sure.  
  
“But… I think you might be correct about which is realer, at least. Maybe I _should_ try to give up on the pretenses. Just. Go after what I want without anything else in the way.” He reaches out to touch Banba’s hand, then. Runs his thumb over his knuckles thoughtfully, and Banba feels something twist in the pit of his stomach. “You, too, my knight. No matter what might have happened before, in this long life of yours, I think… you should let yourself have things. You deserve some happiness.”  
  
It hadn’t ever felt fair, the times before. His years against theirs. But this person is different, isn’t he? An anomaly, existing just outside of time.  
  
“Maybe you’re right,” Banba says softly.  
  
He’s stepping in to curl a hand around his hip, pressing him back against the railing as he kisses him. Woz seems surprised for only a moment before responding with enthusiasm, mouth hot against his own, a contented hum in the back of his throat that he can feel against his lips. His fingers skim over his chest, his collarbone, tracing the shape of the Tribe symbol necklace against his skin. Accepting, is what it feels like.  
  
“Well,” Woz murmurs, drawing back just enough to laugh. “This is definitely a start.”


End file.
